or reach new standards without much effort? That’s easy! One simply has to come up with a non-existing chess tournament and pretends to have participated. The supposed results then enhance your rating! This method has been buried in oblivion lastly, but was applied (unsuccessfully) at the “Kali – Cup” in Hungary (2004) and at the “Memorial Heroes of Chernobyl” (2005)..

Landau – List, 1937. A proper kick from the side makes the white king tumble, until he falls.. 1. Rh3 along with the threat of Rxh2+ ! [2. g3 Rxh2+ 3. Kxh2 Qxg3+ 4. Kh1 Qh3#; 2. Rxf2 Qd1+ and the checkmate is inevitable] 2.. Qg3 3. Qh4 Qxh2#

And black triumphs!

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Alexander Crişan is a business man and had the idea of tampering the system: He tried to buy tournaments (duels were never made public) in order to boost his Elo-rating beyond 2600 points and to simultaneously reach the current Top 50 players in the world (2001). When Crişan came to compete at a grandmaster tournament and scored only half a point out of nine rounds, people got suspicious and consulted an investigation committee which announced the denial of title and rating. This has still not been performed, as a commercial solution from the FIDE is assumed..

Rico – Ballbé, 1955. A chess game can’t be a wild dance? 1. Bc5+ Qxc5 2. Rg8+ Kf7 [2.. Kxg8 3. Qxg6+ checkmate in next move] 3. Qxg6+ Ke6 4. f7+ .. and the king is left with two more moves until his dancing shoes stick to the dancefloor!

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Eventually, the masters of combination and problem friends caused this scenario: Until 1992, the age of large computer databases Gerhard Stadelmaier and Raimondas Senkus could delude the problem-chess-world with plagiarized compositions. For 21 of these 35 compositions a post-processing of the Albert-Collection could be proven – The investigation was compounded by mirroring and twisting.

Even more impudent was Claus-Peter Schoschies in 2004 when he claimed his participation in a chess-composition-solution-tournament. Being crowned Sportsman of the Year by the Ostsee-Newspaper (Germany) was at the expense of losing all fame and the €6,000 prize money for a supposed trip to Athens. Neither names not the organization of the tournament were known in the world of problem-chess..

Not all serious, but for all chess-lovers: “How to cheat at chess?” from William Roland Hartston, who enlightens the reader about everything they have always wanted to know but never dared to ask. Who absolutely can’t stay away, is recommended to read Simon Lovell’s “How to cheat at everything!” 🙂